The present invention relates to an apparatus for effectively opening entangled chemical filaments of tow.
In general tow is composed of a large number of long chemical filaments of thousands to millions denier gathered together, and because of the properties of the filaments, the spinning conditions, the crimps imparted to the filaments and so on, the tow filaments have a strong tendency for entangling with each other. As a result, in the tow spinning process, the fibers are irregularly drafted so that the resulting yarns vary in size or fineness. This problem may be substantially solved by sufficiently opening the filaments of raw tow. Therefore there had been a strong demand for an apparatus which may effectively and easily open the filaments of tow and orient them in parallel relationship without causing damages to and drawing of the filaments at a low cost and which may continuously deliver the opened fibers to the next processing station or frame.
The prior art tow opening apparatus employs rollers for opening tow filaments so that the tow filaments are only two-dimensionally opened. As a result the tow filaments are not imparted with the uniform tensions so that a small group of entangled filaments results. Furthermore since the opening is two-dimensional as described above, the prior art tow opening apparatus is large in size and consequently a large installation space is required.